Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)
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Just found out my trusty first-generation Retina 5K iMac (late 2014) is now on Apple’s ‘vintage products’ list.

I’ll happily upgrade as soon as they announce an Apple Silicon replacement! But current rumors don’t have that until late ’21 or early ’22. :( Not soon enough!

Nice to meet you, Elliot

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Something I noticed over these past few days that I find both heartening and a little amusing:

When I first saw the headlines popping up on Twitter and elsewhere that Elliot Page had announced his name and pronouns, I had no idea who this person was. I haven’t watched Umbrella Academy, and most of the headlines were something along the lines of “Umbrella Academy star Elliot Page…”, so it didn’t clue me in, and I just shrugged it off as someone who wasn’t in my awareness. It wasn’t until other headlines also mentioned “Juno” and some Juno-era pictures were shown that I figured it out.

And I think that’s pretty cool, because in all the news I was seeing in my feeds, not a single post or news headline was deadnaming or misgendering Elliot.

Sure, it’s likely that some amount of that is due to my particular circles of friends and acquaintances, who tend to be more aware of these sorts of things. But still, they were linking out to articles, some in fairly mainstream publications, so even if the person posting was being respectful, it wouldn’t have been a surprise if the news articles weren’t.

But it took me nearly a full day to clue in to why this person’s announcement was making so many headlines — and I think that’s pretty cool. I’ll happily spend a little time being mildly confused if it means that cultural progress is being made.

On This Day: Dec 3

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 23 posts previously published on December 3rd

  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 50/2021: Chains of Command by Bill McCay and Eloise Flood ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 🖖🏻 ➡
  • 2020
    • 📚 forty-nine of 2020: Clash of the Titans by Alan Dean Foster ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Foster does his usual solidly enjoyable adaptation work. And I’m pretty sure that this movie was responsible for the majority of my knowledge of Greek mythology for much of my youth (and beyond…). ➡
    • Stop that nonsense at once, or you won’t be allowed to make any more planets. — Squire Trelane’s father, ST:TOS “The Squire of Gothos” 🖖 ➡
    • Just found out my trusty first-generation Retina 5K iMac (late 2014) is now on Apple’s ‘vintage products’ list. I’ll happily upgrade as soon as they announce an Apple Silicon replacement! But current rumors don’t have that until late ’21 or early ’22. :( Not soon enough! ➡
    • Nice to meet you, Elliot I'll happily spend a little time being mildly confused if it means that cultural progress is being made. ➡
    • On This Day: Dec 3 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from December 3 ➡
  • 2019
    • RIP D.C. Fontana Sad news — D.C. Fontana, one of the pillars of Star Trek, has died. ➡
    • Hopepunk Go forth. Be angry. Be optimistic. Be hopepunk. Make this world a better place, whether it likes it or not. ➡
  • 2018
    • Book fifty-two of 2018: Dinosaur Summer, by Greg Bear. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ And that makes my goal of fifty-two books for the year, with almost a full month to go! ➡
  • 2016
    • Book fifty-three of 2016: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (338/366) ➡
  • 2015
    • Oh, @cardsagainsthumanity. Don’t ever change. Unless it’s for the better, of course. ➡
  • 2014
    • Now is the time @ShaunKing: 'LISTEN: If you ever wondered what you would do if you were alive in the Civil Rights Movement, NOW IS THE TIME to find out. NOW. RIGHT NOW' ➡
  • 2010
    • That 100 Book List (That’s Not Actually From the BBC) The list has nothing to do with the BBC -- the closest the BBC gets is The Big Read, a 2003 list of Britain's 100 most popular books as determined by BBC viewer nominations -- and actually appears to be taken from a 2007 article in _The Guardian_, reporting on the results of a poll of 2,000 people by the World Book Day website. ➡
  • 2005
    • LibraryThing Neat new web toy I just found: LibraryThing -- catalog and tag your book collection. I just spent some time putting in a few shelves worth of my library.... Neat! ➡
  • 2004
    • ecto 2 So ecto 2 is updated, and one of the nifty new features is Amazon integration. It's pretty slick…I do have one concern about the link format, though. ➡
  • 2002
    • Pros and cons of newsreaders So — as a personal favor to me — would all of you nice people who keep me informed about the world, thinking about current events, and considering new ideas on how to tweak my website, kindly pipe down for a day or two so I can get caught up? You should be able to start babbling as normal round about Thursday, I think. ➡
    • Recommended reading? This could be interesting — Mark Pilgrim has set up a Recommended Reading script that analyses your web page, and then suggests other sites that you might find worth reading. ➡
    • Everything old is new again So, over the past few weeks, it's been announced that Henry Kissinger is heading up the 9/11 inquiry, and John Poindexter is the new head of the Total Information Awareness office. And we're supposed to accept these announcements as good decisions? ➡
    • I’m not surprised I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation. ➡
  • 2001
    • Yay Pigface! Pigface is going to be in Seattle at the Experience Music Project as part of their Preaching to the Perverted tour! I am so there. ➡

On This Day: Dec 2

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 24 posts previously published on December 2nd

  • 2025
  • 2023
    • Not a Spotify Wrap-up Streaming only accounts for maybe 10% of my listening, but here's what Apple Music thinks I've been listening to this year. ➡
    • Year 50 Day 214 We needed more books. But then, we _always_ need more books. ➡
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Seattle QFC debuts first apple ever bred in Washington, despite the state being the highest grower: “The apple variety was developed by Washington State University. Washington growers, who paid for the research, will have the exclusive right to sell it for the first 10 years.” ➡
    • There are no humans in Star Wars. Watching the Original Trilogy, we assume that the ‘humans’ of the GFFA (Galaxy Far Far Away) are biologically and sociologically identical to Sol 3 humans. When obviously they’re not! ➡
  • 2017
    • Worst. Fudge. Evar! ➡
  • 2016
  • 2012
    • Christmas 2012 Wishlist Dad asked me to post my Christmas wish list, so here I go. As usual, what follows is links to four separate Amazon wish lists, as my occasional OCD tendencies mean I categorize my greed. Though I don't expect anyone other than my parents to get me anything...I've been surprised in the past, so feel free to indulge! ;) ➡
  • 2010
    • Close the Washington Monument ''Terrorism isn't a crime against people or property. It's a crime against our minds, using the death of innocents and destruction of property to make us fearful.... But when we refuse to be terrorized, when we're indomitable in the face of terror, the terrorists fail -- even if their attacks succeed.'' ➡
    • The Proverbial Sausage Factory This is a fascinating look at a trial from a juror's perspective: hearing the evidence, trying to balance all the factors and evidence in coming to a decision, and watching the legal system at work. Perhaps of particular interest to me as a Law and Justice student, but the kind of thing that I think would be interesting no matter what. ➡
  • 2009
  • 2008
  • 2004
    • Raise the roof! Ain't no party like an Amish party, 'cause an Amish party don't stop! ➡
    • E=1/2CV^2 (Hanscom’s Law) E=1/2CV^2: any given job will only require half of what you know, but will require proportionately more experience than you have. ➡
    • 100 percent Abstinence is the only 100% sure method of avoiding STDs and unwanted pregnancy. ➡
    • Abstinence courses wildly off base Our tax dollars at work: the abstinence programs that Bush is so heavily in favor of (as opposed to real sex education) are distributing wildly inaccurate information to teens. ➡
  • 2003
    • Dead Milkmen tour diaries How very, very cool. Dean Clean, drummer for the Dead Milkmen, is posting his tour diaries from the band's first days of touring back in 1985. ➡
    • Amazon linking techniques According to onfocus, Amazon has changed the way they link to wishlists, breaking current wishlist links in the process…later in the comments, an interesting tidbit of information was posted…and all this reminded me of an important note from Jason Kottke regarding linking to items on Amazon with your Amazon Associates ID. ➡
    • 2003 Weblog Awards Wizbang has opened up nominations for the 2003 Weblog Awards. In an uncharacteristic fit of self-aggrandizement, I went ahead and nominated this site for Best Looking Blog. ➡
  • 2002
    • God is good And God said, 'You have hot water, and can take a bath.' ➡
    • I’m back I had an absolutely wonderful and very relaxing Thanksgiving weekend with Prairie and her family. Details and pictures will be up later on, probably this evening. ➡

On This Day: Dec 1

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 28 posts previously published on December 1st

  • 2023
  • 2021
  • 2020
  • 2019
    • Gordon van Gelder, administrator of the Philip K. Dick Award, is conducting an online auction to raise funds for the award. Lots of books donated by authors and publishers, many (most? all?) signed by the authors. Check it out! 📚 ➡
    • Found on Facebook, original creator unknown, but it sure made me laugh. Welcome to the holiday season! ➡
    • 📚 fifty-seven of 2019: Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1964 Hugo Best Novel Excellent book, mostly quiet and contemplative, as one man struggles with both his and humanity’s place in the galaxy. An introspective and ultimately hopeful piece. ➡
    • First human composting site to open in 2021: This is really neat, but wow, look at that ‘70s sci-fi cult design! Honestly, I think that’s a selling point for me. ➡
    • Are good readers more likely to give up on maths?: “None of this means that we should stop efforts to counter stereotypes about girls’ aptitude for maths and science versus reading. But it does suggest that much of the impact of these stereotypes occurs not at the point at which girls choose a career, but ... Read more ➡
  • 2016
    • Waiting for my dental appointment. Everyone’s favorite way to start the day. (336/366) ➡
  • 2014
    • Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people '…my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.' ➡
  • 2013
    • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 06 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the sixth of quite a few to come! ➡
  • 2007
  • 2005
    • Snow! It's really coming down -- doesn't seem to be sticking yet, but the flakes are huge. Whee! ➡
    • Lost s02e09: What Kate Did Scribbled notes while watching last night's episode of Lost. Spoilers, obviously, so only read further if you want to... ➡
  • 2004
    • MSN Spaces reactions Robert Scoble is collecting reactions to MSN Spaces, including mine. ➡
    • Balloon Feather Boat Tomato Jason Webley has updated his site with information about his most recent show. He has links up to the photo galleries that Josh and I have posted (nifty!), plus a few other goodies. ➡
    • MSN Spaces launches Microsoft finally makes their long-rumored debut into the weblogging service arena with MSN Spaces. I got curious, and it's free, so I went ahead and signed up to try it out. ➡
    • Switch to VoIP? If I switched over to both OneLink and VoIP, my final cost would be about $6/month more than what I'm paying now, but the first three months would be cheaper, as you get a 'free three months' for signing up (some of which are offset by the setup costs, but that's expected). All in all, this sounds like a pretty damn good deal to me. ➡
    • World AIDS Day World AIDS Day, December 1, 2004 ➡
  • 2003
    • Well, hi there…Dick… According to Yahoo! News, this is a photo of Dick Gephardt's shadow… ➡
    • My G5 is an insomniac Issue 1: My G5 appears to be an insomniac. Issue 2: At some point, I lose the ability to choose some of the commands in the Apple menu: 'About This Mac', 'Force Quit...', 'Restart...', 'Shut Down...', and 'Log Out [username]...' are all non-responsive. ➡
    • Roy Disney resigns from Disney Roy Disney himself has left the Walt Disney company, and includes a call for Michael Eisner's resignation or retirement in his letter of resignation. ➡
    • Getting in Google's good graces I use a number of techniques on my weblog, both in the code and how I create entries, that help Google get the most useful information out of my pages. ➡
    • You're an ex-DJ? I don't think I've ever met an ex-DJ. They're always just 'between clubs' or something. ➡
  • 1993
    • [From Usenet: 12.1.93 0608] All I know is that the local Mucusland (Musicland) moved the date in their little book for his new album from October/November to January. Ergh...starting to get torqued at this! ➡
    • [From Usenet 12.1.93 0608] According to a DJ at the local college radio station, there was a sampler put out by Hollywood records a while back with a remix (not remake) of Queen's Stone Cold Crazy, remixed by Trent Reznor. ➡
    • [From Usenet 12.1.93 0542] Personally, I don't have a whole lot, but...Front by Front is good, best track (imho) being #10, Welcome to Paradise ('Hey poor! You don't have to be poor anymore! Jesus is here!') Good sampling. ➡
    • [From Usenet: 12.1.93 0534] Good stuff (imho). New album, while not produced by Reznor, definitely has some of his touch to it...probably picked up some hints while working on the remixes of BLBT(AJF). Nifty...I like it. ➡
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This year’s series of Microblogvember posts is done! Once again, lots of SF/F microfiction. Find all of them — plus, if you scroll back far enough, all of last year’s — on the microblogvember tag page, and (hopefully) enjoy!

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She closed her eyes, reciting line after line of every poem, song, and book she could remember, desperately trying to reinforce her mental defenses against the earworm’s attack. Unfortunately, humanity had yet to find a working defense against “It’s A Small World, After All.”

On This Day: Nov 30

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Since I hit 20 years of blogging this November, this year I’m posting a daily list of anything I published on this day in the past.

There are 30 posts previously published on November 30th

  • 2025
  • 2024
    • Asylum by Una McCormack 📚: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Trek at its best when it’s looking at modern issues through an SF lens. ➡
  • 2023
  • 2021
    • 📚 49/2021: The World of Science Fiction 1926-1976: The History of a Subculture by Lester del Rey ⭐️⭐️⭐️ ➡
    • Blog This Shortcut for iOS or macOS A cross-platform iOS/macOS shortcut for blogging with MarsEdit or Ulysses ➡
  • 2020
    • This year’s series of Microblogvember posts is done! Once again, lots of SF/F microfiction. Find all of them — plus, if you scroll back far enough, all of last year’s — on the microblogvember tag page, and (hopefully) enjoy! ➡
    • She closed her eyes, reciting line after line of every poem, song, and book she could remember, desperately trying to reinforce her mental defenses against the earworm’s attack. Unfortunately, humanity had yet to find a working defense against “It’s A Small World, After All.” ➡
    • Washington state has enabled COVID-19 exposure notifications for iPhone and Android users. More information and installation instructions are available at WANotify.org. You should enable this! Also, stay at home when you can, mask and social distance when you can’t. ➡
    • On This Day: Nov 30 Recognizing 20 years of blogging, here are my past posts from November 30 ➡
    • 📚 forty-eight of 2020: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome by Joan D. Vinge ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Better than I expected for a novelization of an ‘80s action flick. Makes me want to re-watch the film again to see if it’s better than I remember, or if Vinge just did a particularly good job. ➡
  • 2019
    • Thirty days, thirty posts: I successfully completed Microblogvember! All my posts are tagged with ‘Microblogvember’ on my blog. All fiction (as far as I know, at least), all in the general SF/fantasy/horror spaces. This was a fun project! ➡
    • “I told you I had to integrate the all the systems before we could start!” “Yes, I know—I just didn’t realize you meant…all the systems,” they replied, looking in horror at the wires and tubes running from the console and snaking under their skin. Microblogvember: integrate ➡
    • 📚 fifty-six of 2019: Taking Wing, by Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Captain Riker’s first assignment post-Nemesis. Also, quite coincidentally, in many ways a sequel to the last Trek novel I read, with several direct ties, and by the same authors. 🖖 ➡
  • 2017
    • Day one! #cardsagainsthumanity #cah ➡
  • 2016
    • Lit by the Christmas tree lights. (335/366) ➡
  • 2013
    • Sounds From the Lost Abbey 05 Back in February, I took up a challenge from one of my friends to create a mix based around songs that I'd have played at the Lost Abbey, during the mid- to late-1990s. Here's the fifth of quite a few to come! ➡
  • 2009
  • 2005
    • Wishlist time! Seeing how it's less than a month before Christmas and we've run full-bore into the shopping season, I figured I'd put up my wishlist. Of course, the one thing standing in the way is that for the most part, I really don't _have_ a wishlist...at least, not a serious one. ➡
    • Tweaking the ads I've done a bit of tweaking on the ads served up on the pages of my site. While I certainly have no intentions of becoming an adfarm, I finally decided that I didn't mind at least _slightly_ increasing the possibilities of having a few pennies slide my way from time to time. ➡
  • 2004
    • ADD, Hyperactivity, and Ritalin I have serious issues with the current obsession with ADD and the associated pharmaceutical treatments. My personal belief is that it's an incredibly overblown and overmedicated issue. ➡
    • iTMS: Kevin Spacey ‘Beyond the Sea’ Last night while bouncing randomly around the iTMS, I noticed an album by Kevin Spacey. Since I know Kevin as an actor, and not a singer, I was a little curious, and did some investigating. Turns out that there's an upcoming biopic of Bobby Darin called Beyond the Sea with Kevin in the lead role, and he actually does all of his own singing for the film. ➡
    • Oddly Enough News Article | Reuters.com An Australian phone company is offering customers the chance to blacklist numbers before heading out for a night on the town so they can reduce the risk of making any embarrassing, incoherent late-night calls. ➡
    • A Seattle-centric blonde joke A blonde was feeling so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into Puget Sound. She went down to the docks and was about to leap into the frigid water when a handsome young sailor saw her teetering on the edge of the pier crying. ➡
    • Blast from the Past Something I never realized before — apparently, the person in this iconic ad for Maxell audiocassettes…is none other than then-Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy. Nifty! ➡
    • LotR:TYEBEE (Lord of the Rings: Till Your Eyes Bleed Extended Edition) 7am: friends arrive, pancake breakfast. / 8am: Fellowship of the Ring (~4+ hrs) / 12:30pm: Lunch / 2:00pm: The Two Towers (~3 1/2 hrs) / 5:30pm: Dinner / 7:00pm: Return of the King (~ 4 1/2 hrs) / 11:30pm: Eyes ooze out of our sockets, bedsores open on our asses. ➡
    • Adoption Lately, I've been really enjoying reading The Sticking Point as Tommy and his wife travel to Seoul to finalize the adoption of a baby boy. Being able to experience the adoption through Tommy's eyes has been rather touching for me, as some time ago I was somewhat involved in an adoption from the other side of the process. ➡
  • 2003
    • First LotR:TRotK review…almost The Return of the King is ... sorry about this, but we're not allowed to tell you what we think of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King until next Tuesday. ➡
    • Bombardier Embrio The Embryo is a single-wheeled vehicle, balanced using internal gyroscopes and powered with a hydrogen fuel cell, emitting only water as its exhaust. ➡
    • The fitty-cen' project Of course, the real question is whether gangsta rappers are going to chip in… ➡
  • 2001
    • Upcoming reading material In the course of a LotR discussion quite a few books and series were mentioned, and I thought I'd jot some of them down so I can pull from this list next time I need to find a book to dive into. ➡
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📚 forty-eight of 2020: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome by Joan D. Vinge ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Better than I expected for a novelization of an ‘80s action flick. Makes me want to re-watch the film again to see if it’s better than I remember, or if Vinge just did a particularly good job.